


Though We're Tethered To The Story We Must Tell

by likeanchors



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 13:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/662481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likeanchors/pseuds/likeanchors
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis doesn’t believe in soul mates. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Though We're Tethered To The Story We Must Tell

**Author's Note:**

> Slowly moving all my fics to one archive. Apologies if you've read this before.

The first time Louis sees Harry in the dingy bathrooms at X-Factor boot camp, the only thing Louis can think is that there’s something so achingly familiar about him. Unable to help himself, Louis asks the boy for his autograph. Hours pass and in a flash they’re thrown together and their whirlwind career starts. The next two years pass in a haze of interviews, long haul flights, quick tasteless meals, recording days, and epic signings across the world and Harry; Harry’s bright green eyes, his mess of curly hair and the inches of lightly tanned skin that Louis has personally mapped out with his tongue.

 

Lately everything has been tense and odd between them but still, Louis feels like there’s something he can’t quite put his finger on. Ever since he met Harry he’s felt more like himself – if that’s even possible – he feels whole. On the increasingly rare days when they’re apart, Louis itches to touch Harry again, to feel him and feel that contentment that he only ever really feels when Harry’s eyes are on him. On nights like tonight, when Harry’s long limbs are wrapped around him like a blanket, Louis feels like this has happened all before. There’s a part of him, so inherent, buried so deep inside, that recognises this – recognises Harry – and for a moment Louis wonders. Louis doesn’t believe is things so trite as soul mates, but under the cover of darkness he finds himself wishing Harry was his because if Harry was his “soul mate” then there would be a permanency to all of this.

 

Harry moves, his lips nudging against Louis’ neck in a way that Louis finds endearing and excruciating at the same time. Harry mumbles something, before sighing softly and beginning to snore again. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, Louis presses a lingering kiss to Harry’s forehead as a small part of him buried so deep inside screams _mine_.

 

***

The sun was high in the sky; the air around them was hot, sticky and ultimately stifling. Harry’s skin was dark after years of working outdoors unprotected, his hair long and unruly. His name is Lev in this lifetime and Louis, who is called Mikha’el, is a pale and sickly boy whose family owns Lev. They were never supposed to have met, but Mikha’el had snuck out of his rooms and into the gardens where Lev was working. It soon became a regular occurrence. The two boys, who were of a similar age, they would sit below the date palm and talk for an hour or two before Mikha’el’s mother’s shrill voice would fill the house and he would go scampering back to his rooms.

 

Mikha’el seemed to be getting better for a few months. No one knew about Lev and Mikha’el could make neither heads nor tails of how his heart would seem to skip beats when he saw Lev in the gardens. No one ever explained to Mikha’el that life was unfair. He went almost a week without seeing Lev before he found out his father had sold him to another wealthier family. No one could understand the rapid deterioration of Mikha’el’s condition; he himself could hardly understand it.

 

In this lifetime they had scant weeks together. Lev lived a relatively long life for someone of his station, but he never felt the same contentment or familiarity that he had felt with Mikha’el again.

 

***

Louis hadn’t expected to find a Roman soldier while checking the wooded area surrounding their make-shift camp that morning. His name is Tagd and he is just defending his lands and his people from people like Regulus, Harry’s incarnation in this life. They only met for a few moments, their bodily tussle quickly became deadly when Regulus drew his sword. Sharp metal bit into the meaty flesh of his thigh as he thrust his appropriated dagger into the Roman’s armpit.

 

Tagd’s eyes met Regulus’s as the Roman’s eyes widened out of shock. For a moment the earth was still and something undefined filled Tagd. Regulus’s sword slashed wildly cutting through the unprepared Tagd. Beneath the ancient yew, Tagd’s eyes found Regulus’s as they both lay dying.

 

In this lifetime they met only the once.

 

***

When Louis wakes in the middle of the night, his hair sticking to his sweat-slicked forehead, he’s pinned to the bed by the peacefully slumbering body he knows so well. He had dreamt of invading ships and fires on the horizon, of bright laughing eyes suddenly wide with surprise, a sword sticking out of his gut. Slipping down the bed, Louis, known as Lysander, draws Harry’s incarnation, Niko, to him, the slender youth surprisingly pliant in his arms. Fleetingly, Lysander presses a kiss to Niko’s brow, his stomach swooping when the boy’s face is stretched with a sleepy smile that makes Lysander’s heart beat twice as fast. Niko doesn’t even question it when he is woken by Lysander’s insistent lips on his, his hands mapping Niko’s body, somehow both tender and unrepentant at the same time. Hours later, his want barely satiated, Lysander drifts off into a disturbed sleep. Niko watches over him, his hand smoothing carefully over Lysander’s wrinkled brow, until morning broaches the horizon.

 

A few weeks later, war ships approach from the south and lay waste to their village. Unparalleled grief suffuses Lysander when he comes across Niko’s dying body. Days later, after the raiding party have left the village, Niko and Lysander share the same funeral pyre. So all-consuming was Lysander’s grief that he didn’t even notice the sword that cut through him with shocking ease.

 

In this lifetime, they had been blessed enough to be allowed to love each other.

 

***

Isamu, as Louis is known in this life, had spent his life in the service of his feudal lord without complaint. But there had always been something missing. He had never expected to live so long and yet here he was, on his deathbed with nothing to show for his life.

 

The lives in which they don’t meet are always the hardest.

 

***

The smell of revolution is in the air and in this life time they are Louis and Henri and they have grown up with one another. Louis has only had one other lover, a passing fancy to try and convince himself that he wasn’t so terribly in love with his oldest and dearest friend. Henri is so devastatingly handsome with his bright eyes and devilish smile; he easily struts through the court, Louis following just behind at a reasonable distance. They are polite and affable with the ladies, Henri deflecting their interest with practised ease as Louis fumbles for the right words. He’s only ever truly comfortable when they’re locked up in their rooms, tangled in one another.

 

Louis has no idea if Henri feels as strongly for him as he feels for Henri. That night Henri is slow and tender as he takes Louis, his large hands slide effortlessly across Louis’s sides, his tongue insistent as it begs for entrance. Henri whispers all kinds of endearing things as he nips and sucks his way across Louis’s body. It isn’t until later, after their carnal lust is replete and they’re lying next to each other, their bodies barely touching, that Henri whispers words of love and Louis’s is fairly sure his heart is about to burst.

 

They barely make it out of France alive in that lifetime.

 

***

The artillery shells fall around them like confetti, spent but burning hot; one catches the side of Louis’s neck. His name is William in this life and he’s been plunged into hell. He is a part of _The Old Two-two’s_ ; currently they’re holed up in a rain drenched trench somewhere in Picardy. He can smell his own singed flesh and he feels his stomach turn just moments before he vomits spectacularly all over the muddy walls. He can hear Harry sigh heavily and barely manages to turn in time to catch the canteen he’s lobbed at him. Harry is known as Edward in this life and for some reason the derisive nature of his exclamation hurts William more than the burn on his neck.

 

For weeks William and Edward grudgingly fought side by side. There was something about Edward that continually served to distract William when he least needed distracting. It was because of this distraction that William caught a bullet in back.

 

In that life, William bled out in Edward’s arms. For a fleeting moment there was a kindness in Edward’s eyes that William never thought he would see and his arms tightened reflexively around William.

 

***

Louis was christened Thomas in this life and he knows Harry as Laurence. They grow up in the same village in the midlands and they’re cordial with one another but not what anyone would consider friends. Thomas can almost pretend that he’s happy in this life. When he marries a pretty girl at twenty-four, Laurence is in one of the pews with a smile on his face. A few years later, Thomas reciprocates and watches as Laurence is wed. There’s something that never quite sits right with him. When he holds his daughter in his arms for the first time he almost feels whole, but there’s still something missing.

 

He’s almost forty before he realises. They’re at a garden party for something or other, Laurence’s daughter is just toddling and she keeps tripping over feet. His smile is so radiant and pure as he scoops her into his arms and cuddles her close. Thomas feels his chest tighten in a way he’s never felt before; there are butterflies in his stomach and he, for the first time in his life, feels properly in awe of another person. For the next few months he encounters Laurence more frequently and then all of a sudden one day he realises that he’s fallen in love.

 

He loves his wife and children, but not in the way he’s come to realise that he loves Laurence. These feelings are terrifying and all encompassing. There’s something painfully familiar about Laurence that Thomas has never noticed before. He never even for one moment contemplates that Laurence may actually have similar feelings for him. Instead he convinces himself to keep this distance they’ve always had because Laurence is perfectly happy with this life that he has.

 

Lives like this are torturous for both of them; always wanting but never able to have.

 

***

When Louis wakes he needs nothing more to claim Harry. Louis’s never felt more desperate than he has right now, it’s not just about having Harry, it’s about _needing_ him. Louis’s never been very good with words when he needs to be so he puts his mouth to better use. He marks Harry wherever he can; hickeys on top of hickeys, bite marks on top of bite marks. He spends hours just worshipping this body that houses the soul he’d know anywhere; the soul that he’s chased across a hundred lifetimes.

 

Louis doesn’t believe in soul mates. He doesn’t need to.


End file.
